Non-profit Strategy Leadership Project

MGMT 321: Leadership and Motivation

James Thomas Joseph

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About the Red Cross

Mission: The American Red Cross prevents and alleviates human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.

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Volunteer Opportunities:(relevant to understand associated leadership roles)

• Disaster Response- help people affected by disasters ranging from house fire to hurricanes by providing food, shelter, essential relief supplies, comfort and hope

• Community Outreach and Education- teach families, people in classrooms, organizations and corporations how to be Red Cross ready by taking simple steps to get prepared

• Blood Services- coordinate blood drives or serve as a blood drive volunteer to register blood donors

• Fundraising- make it financially possible for the Red Cross to perform its lifesaving services

• Chapter Support- help your chapter by providing general support

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Fundament Principles of the Red Cross

Volunteers and leaders are expected to adhere to the Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross Movement: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.

This is something that I believe the American Red Cross is spot on by providing clear, concise, fundamental principles of what their volunteers, associates, and leaders should strive to represent

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Fundamental Principles Cont’d• Humanity: The Red Cross, born of a desire to bring assistance without discrimination

to the wounded on the battlefield, endeavors – in its international and national capacity – to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship cooperation and lasting, friendship, cooperation and lasting peace amongst all peoples

• Impartiality: it makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. It endeavors to relieve the suffering of individuals, being guided solely by their needs, and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress

• Neutrality: In order to continue to enjoy the confidence of all, the Red Cross may not take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial , religious or ideological nature.

• Independence: The Red Cross is independent. The national societies, while auxiliaries in the humanitarian services of their governments and subject to the laws of their respective countries, must always maintain their autonomy so that they may be able at all times to act in accordance with Red Cross Principles

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Fundamental Principles Cont’d• Voluntary Service: The Red Cross is a voluntary relief movement not prompted in

any manner by desire for gain• Unity: there can be only one Red Cross or Red Crescent Society in any one country.

It must be open to all. It must carry on its humanitarian work throughout its territory.• Universality: The Red Cross is a worldwide institution in which all societies have

equal status and share equal responsibilities and duties in helping each other

Importance: It is important to understand the Fundamental Principles that organization is founded upon. It is these fundamental principles that are upheld within all members, volunteers, and leaders within the American Red Cross.

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Values

The American Red Cross established values that are essential to the continued success: compassionate, collaborative, creative, credible and committed.

•Compassionate: We are dedicated to improving the lives of those we serve and to treating each other with care and respect.•Collaborative: We work together as One Red Cross family, in partnership with other organizations, and always embrace diversity and inclusiveness•Creative: We seek new ideas, are open to change and always look for better ways to serve those in need•Credible: We act with integrity, are transparent guardians of the public trust and honor our promises.•Committed: We hold ourselves accountable for defining and meeting clear objectives, delivering on our mission and carefully stewarding our donor funds

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Values Cont’d

The Values that exemplify the American Red Cross provide a great basis for all volunteer and the current leadership to embrace. By providing these clear concise and unambiguous values leader’s can them implement them into establishing and maintaining the organizational culture.

It is maintaining these strong values to promote the organizational culture that is needed in a non-profit with as much humanitarian responsibility is essential in keeping the publics and the worlds perception.

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Values Cont’d

This again helps foster and build the brand and image. It is so crucial for non-profit organizations to truly create the culture in which they purport themselves to have.

I personally really liked the value: committed, which stated, “ we hold ourselves accountable for defining and meeting clear objectives, delivering on our mission and carefully stewarding our donor funds.”

All non-profit organizations should adopt and embrace this value within their organizational leadership and culture.

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Brand and Associated Perception

Red Cross Leadership Analysis Strengths:•Brand, Image, Associated Perception

The American Red Cross has had the ability to brand itself and maintain it’s strong associated image since it was founded in 1881 by Clara Barton.

I would argue this is the American Red Cross’s greatest leadership tool in that it does not need to work on creating a perception or altering organizational culture. This gives the American Red Cross a huge advantage compared to “newer” non-profit organizations without the extensive historical record and reputation. The image sells itself.

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Bureaucracy and Time-lag

With an organization as big as the American Red Cross, there is bound to be an abundance of bureaucratic procedure and organizational structure.

These create a time-lag in actually being able to associate with the organization and may present problems with the leadership in how to deal with this.

My personal experience was that I could not really obtain any information until I formally applied to be a volunteer. This could be a good/bad thing.

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Bureaucracy and Time-lag Cont’d

The fact the even becoming a volunteer has to me so much bureaucratic red tape can deter some potential volunteers from joining.

This presents the leadership with a tough challenge on how to recruit individuals you may not be technologically and electronically savvy as much of the process depends on electronic submission of information.

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Challenges:

There are many challenges faced by the leadership at the American Red Cross such as:•Recruiting Volunteers•Training Volunteers•Disaster Response •Fundraising•Meeting organizational objectives/goals

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Recruiting

Recruiting volunteers may be the biggest challenge faced by the American Red Cross. Volunteers comprise of over 96% of the workforce. When the current leadership cannot recruit/retain volunteers the organizational suffers as a whole.

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Training

Even if the current leadership is able to attract new volunteers that still need to be proficiently trained in the organization and their specific occupation/association with the American Red Cross

I personally found the electronic training platform used to train volunteers (SABA) extremely cumbersome and hard to use. Again this can deter people from continuing through the volunteer process.

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Fundraising

For most non-profits fundraising is a cornerstone of their annual strategic planning. This then falls upon the leadership to establish and promote fundraiser in order to raise money for the organization. I think it is safe to say that overall the American Red Cross does not have problems with this, having and estimated budget over 13.5 billion dollars, but it still falls on the leadership to manage this.

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Disaster Response

Whether it is on the national, international or the local level disaster response and the ability to quickly respond to disasters is one of the biggest challenges faced by the leadership. The Western PA region alone consists of 25 counties, 11 community chapters, and averages over 1,000 disasters per year. The only way leadership can meet this daunting task is to have an adequate amount of trained personnel. This then falls back on being able to properly recruit and train volunteers.

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Meeting Organizational Objectives

All leadership must strive to meet organizational strategic objectives. This is a composite of everything from maintaining organizational culture, exemplifying the Red Cross values, recruiting volunteers, retaining volunteers and properly training volunteers. If the leadership cannot achieve or excel in any one of these areas the entire organization suffers as a whole.

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Personal SuggestionsThe Red Cross needs to shorten the time from a potential volunteer thinking about working for the Red Cross and the time it actually takes in order to be associated with the organization.

It has been well over four weeks and I am personally still not adequately trained in order to help my chapter. Again this goes back to the bureaucracy that exists with extremely large organizations.

It should not be so time-consuming and cumbersome just to become a volunteer. I am a 24 year old college student and I personally had difficulty electronically applying to be a volunteer. How would an older/retired person find the application process? My guess is that they would find it hard and this may deter them from volunteering?

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Personal Suggestions Cont’dSome ways/recommendations they can improve:•Have specific events that within one day potential volunteer applicants can show up, decided they want to volunteer and then fully become a volunteer that day without having to wait or compete unnecessary procedures.•Continue to use social media in order to promote community based events•Focus on the youth and the retired as these are the two demographics with the most potential to help the organization people that are retired may be more willing to volunteer, and focusing on the youth plants the seeds that are to be sewn tomorrow

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AAR (After Action Review)What the Red Cross Leadership Strategy Excelled at?•Promoting Organizational Culture and Values•Brand, Image and Associated Perception

What the Red Cross Leadership Assessment Revealed?•Bureaucratic•Time-Consuming•Some what cumbersome

What the Red Cross Leadership can improve on?•Expediting the volunteer application process•Focus on specific demographics that can volunteer and benefit the organization•Continue to use social media in order to promote community events

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